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Faceless Landscape
2000 Jimmy Williams
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
As it grows bigger we all grow smaller
Interstate highway vaults past the shell of a city
Lined with shuttered windows and shattered dreams
Another casualty of creeping conglomeration
A neighborhood crumbles apart at the seams
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
As it grows bigger we all grow smaller
Meanwhile soulless places sprout like dandelions
On a plain of homogeneity
Human experience narrowed and eroding
On the grindstone of convenience and profit
Strip mall stripped of all originality
Predictable and purged of personality
Ugly cinderblock monstrosities
No sense of rootedness or identity
Disconnected disembodied and distant
Automatons with no sense of autonomy
One more brand stamped on your public space
You let them take it all away
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
Shrink shrink shrinking in the shadow of the faceless landscape
As it grows bigger we all grow smaller
All grow, all grow, all grow, all grow
We all grow, all grow smaller
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CAN'T YOU SEE
1995 Jimmy Williams and Greg Matwijiszyn
Kept well informed of the vapid, fact-less news
Stifling what you already know is true
Circus of sound bites we easily digest
Somatic bliss of our thinking at rest
Can't you see they're painting us a picture
Can't you see they're altering the truth
Intravenous injection of sitcom serendipity
Baseless illusion of what your life should be
Sugar junkies lapping up the sweetened coating
Systematic anesthesia keeps our minds floating
Too contented to bother asking questions
Path of least resistance leads to oblivion
The corporate mogul's stranglehold must be broken
Free up the media so truth is freely spoken
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Step right up for the ride of your life (this could all be yours)
Mesmerized by the swirling sights and sounds (this could all be yours)
So enticing so exciting (this could all be yours)
Costs you nothing to get on but the price is ever escalating
Kaleidoscopic illusion
Smashing mass of confusion
A sight known all to well
On the credit carousel
Like street pushers they throw it in your face (this could all be yours)
Knowing full well you'll be hooked in over your head (this could all be yours)
As they profit off your misery (this could all be yours)
Making it so easy to fool you into living beyond your meager means
Kaleidoscopic illusion
Smashing mass of confusion
A sight known all to well
On the credit carousel
Thrill dispels as the nausea wells
Burrowing deeper and deeper with every turn
To get off you have to jump
Crashing to ground to the sickening sound of shattered colors Crumbling into the green of the cash they take
And the black of the vortex you've been sucked into
And the black of the vortex you've been sucked into
Bellowing about responsibility (this could all be yours)
While denying their own culpability (this could all be yours)
Prosperity built on a morass of crippling debt (this could all be yours)
Tentacles extending just keep smiling as you sink
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Freedom From Thought - 2000 Jimmy Williams
Freedom from thought frees no one
Except those who think for you
How much of your life is spent supressing what you really feel?
Ridicule and derision greet any attempt to find what's real
So easy and so effortless to cast your thoughts aside
So hard to realise you're being taken for a ride
They'll tell you that black is white
Soon You're believing that day is night
As the tangled weeds take root in your fallow mind
Capitulate control
Someone else owns your soul
Drifting aimless in a miasma of the most shallow kind
Tuning out, turning off, dropping in to the slot reserved for you
Hollow meaningless existence in a life that's so untrue
Have you ever really asked yourself how free you really are
Will that tattered spark of light rekindle into a blazing star
They'll tell you that black is white
Soon You're believing that day is night
As the tangled weeds take root in your fallow mind
Capitulate control
Someone else owns your soul
Drifting aimless in a miasma of the most shallow kind
Of the most shallow kind...
Told what you should buy, told what you should need
By the machine you feed
Told what you should love, told what you should hate
Maybe it's not too late
Told what you should buy, told what you should need
By the machine you feed
Told what you should love, told what you should hate
Maybe it's not too late
I hope it's not too, I hope it's not too late.
I hope it's not too, I hope it's not too late.
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Target Market
2000 Jimmy Williams
Targeted by nefarious nostalgia
Disillusion becomes a fad
Promising to make us feel good
Then doing your damndest to keep us feleing bad
Target market - padded pockets full of profits for you
Target market - the demographic goldmine being tapped unrefined
Target market - our predicament is sold back to us
Target market - the magic carpet jerked out from under us again
Helplessness becomes a fashion statement
Self-hatred becomes a trend
Aimlessness becomes a meaningless movement
Cacaphony becomes another movie soundtrack
Target market - padded pockets full of profits for you
Target market - the demographic goldmine being tapped unrefined
Target market - our predicament is sold back to us
Target market - the magic carpet jerked out from under us again
Incessantly showered by the flowing fountain of false youth
While you drink the sweet nectar squeezed from the bitter fruits of our struggle
But I'm hip to your game, I'm hip to your game
And there are many more like me to say
That your aim is way off and who refuse to be your
Generation Xpatriated
Generation Xploited
Generation Xpatriated
Generation Xploited
Generation Xpatriated
Generation Xploited
Target market - padded pockets full of profits for you
Target market - the demographic goldmine being tapped unrefined
Target market - our predicament is sold back to us
Target market - the magic carpet jerked out from under us again
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well all right
Perpetuate the suffering
When will it end When there's nobody left
Pandora's box blown open
Left us showered with shit
Still we kid ourselves
Sights set on money or sex or success riding high flying blind
But what's left when it's stripped away
How many lives have you ruined today
Still the end's coming anyway
Cannibal eyes cannibalize
How many more will lie devoured defiled destroyed?
Just can't face the one shared fate that binds us
But now I know
There's no turning back
Struggling to make a difference
Indifference reigns
Still we kid ourselves
Sights set on money or sex or success riding high flying blind
But what's left when it's stripped away
How many lives have you ruined today
Still the end's coming anyway
Cannibal eyes cannibalize
How many more will lie devoured defiled destroyed?
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Wake Up America
2000 Greg Matwijiszyn, Jimmy Williams, Ed Grande
Tell me you love your freedom, but you're too scared to use it
Opportunity arises to speak your mind, but you refuse it
A mockery of democracy
Wake up, wake up America.
Wake up, wake up America.
Corporate dictatorship propped up by inaction and stasis
Democrats Republicans - one moneyed monolith betrays us
A mockery of democracy
Wake up, wake up America.
Wake up, wake up America.
Results are in doesn't matter who'll win
For four more years the gullible cheer
Handing over power to one more liar who's
Promising to fix an unfixable system
Don't hold your breath
Betray your conscience as you choose the lesser of two evils
You pull the lever, pull the trigger, blow away your free will
The death-knell of democracy
Wake up, wake up America.
Wake up, wake up America.
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8. |
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WHAT WE HAVE SOWN
1997 Jimmy Williams
God help us all when we reap what we've sown, when the cover's finally blown away
Tomorrow's hope betrayed by wanton disregard today
Objectified, commodified, force fed corrupt values pumped into their heads, alas
Their guiding lights imploded, alone through darkness they must pass
Synthetic sensuality in the behavior of an six year old child
What kind of woman do we want her to grow up to be
Supercilious sophistication in the behavior of an eight year old child
What kind of man do we expect him top grow up to be?
Innocence is lost - if it ever existed I just don't know
In a place where caring is villified and compassion never grows
Selfishness is a virtue here, a lesson that they learn so well
Enslaved to trends to keep them buying what we have to sell
The hopelessness and despair etched in the face of a fourteen year old child
Feeling pity for the woman she's grown up to be
I see the hatred and the rage etched in the face of a sixteen year old child
Growing to fear the kind of man he has grown up to be
Feigning shock and horror, this was no accident
Feigning shock and horror, this was no accident
Feigning shock and horror, this was no accident
Feigning shock and horror, when we know damn well
This was no accident
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9. |
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STATE OF THE STATE
1997 Greg Matwijiszyn & Jimmy Williams
State of the state
State of the state
State of the state
State of the state
Our so-called leaders refuse to act for the best
Lackeys responsive to the powerful interests
No faith in institutions, and it's no surprise
The steamroller of will fueled by incessant corporate lies
State of the state (Crumbling under its oppressive weight)
State of the state (Crumbling under its oppressive weight)
State of the state (Crumbling under its oppressive weight)
State of the state (Crumbling under its oppressive weight)
Mangy tail wagging the disoriented dog
Voices are stifled by impenetrable fog
The masses abdicated to the status quo
Discourse becomes a finger pointing rock throwing show
Silence is deafening
Not signaling apathy but discontent
Silence is deafening
The roar of disillusion - message sent
State of the state - What's the use of having a voice
State of the state - When we're never even given a choice
State of the state - Just leave me the room to sigh
State of the state - As I wonder if we'll ever try
Silence is deafening (4X)
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11. |
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Yep - 2000 Jimmy Williams
Everything seems to move so fast
Nothing expected to last
Any longer than the vapor on a misty trail
That spirals after its own tail
Unpalatable platitudes bludgeon my senses
That masochistic maxim that fences us in
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way you want it to be?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way you want it?
Open eyes despise what I see
Feeling the last remnants of samity
Evaporate into a distant cloud
On the horizon where we once stood proud
Unpalatable platitudes bludgeon my senses
That masochistic maxim that fences us in
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way you want it to be?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way you want it to be?
Maybe I'm longing for a time when living seemed more sublime
Or maybe I'm longing for a place that never existed in any case
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way you want it to be?
Yep that's the way it is
But is it the way it always was?
Is it the way it always was?
Is it the way you want it to be?
Is it the way you want it to be?
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Waste Another Day - 2001 Jimmy Williams
Another loved one lost and it won't be the last
As those that we hold dear are snatched into the past
I often wonder why we're all just born to die
We say our first hellos, our last goodbyes
[And I think of all the days I've wasted
All the chances that I should have taken
And I know it's just a matter of time
Until I stare into another pair of dying eyes]
Forgetting to say all the things we wish we'd said
Forgetting why we're here - to try to heal instead
I hope I've poured some light into your darkest wine
I hope I've touched your life 'cause you've touched mine
[And I think of all the days I've wasted
All the chances that I should have taken
And I know it's just a matter of time
Until I stare into another pair of dying eyes]
This gift we're given, sometimes it's so misused
The people that we hurt, the feelings we abuse
Sometimes I hate myself so much I want to die
But when I think the worst I look in your eyes
[And I think of all the days I've wasted
All the chances that I should have taken
And I know it's just a matter of time
Until I stare into another pair of dying eyes]
And I swear I'll never waste another day
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Continuing in their time-honored tradition, Faceless Lansdcape consisted of several years worth of material. Tim had written most of the music for track 9, which was originally supposed to be on Illusory Refuge (notice how wordy it is!). Ed had also sent me some lyrics and we used some of those to flesh out Greg's Wake Up America idea. We began recording these songs in October 2003 before scrapping everything and re-recording many of the parts, finally releasing a short run of 50 CDs, along with digital distribution, in 2009. Musically, one will notice that we tried to take the experimentation of A Spectrum of Light, along with the darker mood and song structures of Illusory Refuge, and come up with a catchy Invisible Hand type album. Maybe it will work, maybe not, but how many other punk bands can you name who have a song in 5/4 time?.
